Harry Redknapp was overlooked for the England manager's job in 2012, with the FA instead turning to Roy Hodgson. Photograph: Dave Howarth/PA

Harry Redknapp does not believe the Football Association's senior officials are equipped to make high-level sporting decisions and said he "would not trust them to show him a good manager if their lives depended on it".

Redknapp was considered to be the clear favourite to take the England job when Fabio Capello resigned last year, but the FA opted to approach Roy Hodgson, then in charge at West Bromwich Albion.

It had been considered a near-certainty that Redknapp would leave Tottenham to take the job, and he has admitted he believed as much himself, going as far as asking Brendan Rodgers, then at Swansea and now at Liverpool, to be his assistant at Euro 2012.

Although Redknapp maintains he holds no grudge against Hodgson, Redknapp is still unhappy and claims he was the leading choice with the fans and the players, suggesting senior members of the national squad like Steven Gerrard texted him to offer their support for him to succeed Capello.

"I wouldn't trust the FA to show me a good manager if their lives depended on it. How would they know? What clubs have they ever run? Who do they speak to who really knows the game?" the QPR manager said in his autobiography, serialised in the Daily Mail.

"This isn't about them giving the England job to me or Roy Hodgson, but English football being run by people who really haven't got a clue. And they get to pick the England manager.

"Everyone said I was the people's choice, the only choice. All the senior players seemed to be up for me to get the job. I got quite a few text messages at the time from players saying they would love me to manage England: Steven Gerrard, Wayne Rooney, Rio Ferdinand, John Terry. But the FA went for Roy Hodgson to be the England manager – a man who is more their cup of tea."

While Redknapp was expected to leave Tottenham for England, he ended up leaving them without a job at all as the Spurs chairman Daniel Levy parted company with him that summer.

A number of Spurs fans had held the belief Redknapp had allowed the England job to become the focus of his attention and, despite denying that, he has confessed to making plans for the national team while in the Tottenham dugout.

"If I had become the England manager I would have taken Brendan Rodgers as my number two," he added. "My thinking on Brendan was this: if he can do it with players from the lower leagues at Swansea what can he do with Rio and Terry or Rooney and Gerrard?

"So when Tottenham played Swansea on April 1, 2012, I pulled Brendan after the game and said that if all the speculation about me and England was true would he consider coming to the European Championship in the summer as my part-time coach?

"I told him I wanted England to play with as much technical ambition as Swansea. He was up for it.

"Some Tottenham fans might think I was distracted from my club job, but I can assure you the conversation took five minutes. And we beat Swansea 3-1 that day, by the way.

"It didn't work out. On April 1, I was contemplating the way forward for England with Brendan Rodgers – and on April 29 the FA offered the job to Roy Hodgson.

"I'll admit, I thought it was mine. Everyone seemed so certain, everyone I had met from all parts of the game seemed utterly convinced it was my job."

Redknapp believes that the issue of compensation to Tottenham remains one of the reasons why he was never asked.

"I'm sure the FA would deny they were interested in me anyway, they always like to say they got their No1 choice, but maybe what helped make their minds up was the thought of writing a cheque in the region of £16million to Levy.

"He is known for driving a hard bargain at the best of times; get Daniel on a bad day and I would have ended up more expensive than Capello – and the FA were already getting a lot of criticism over his £6m-a-year salary.

"Of all the reasons doing the rounds for me not becoming England manager, the compensation issue makes most sense."